Handwara protests: Girl levels allegations against police

SRINAGAR: A veil-wearing girl, presented by an NGO as the one who was at the centre of Handwara protests last month, today claimed that police had "pressurised" her to make a statement before a magistrate in which she exonerated an army man of molestation charges.

Addressing the media here, the girl demanded registration of a case against the police and anyone else found responsible for recording and circulating her video statement and for the "wrongful confinement and hostile treatment" from April 12 to May 12.

She made a statement, narrating what, according to her, had happened on April 12 and the subsequent developments. The media persons were discouraged from asking questions to her. Handwara town and adjoining areas of Kupwara district of Kashmir had erupted last month after allegations that a 16-year-old girl had been molested by an army man.

In a video-recorded "statement" released by police later, the girl had said no soldier was involved in any molestation and had blamed a local boy for misbehaving with her. Today, Khurram Parvez of NGO Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, organised a press conference here in which the veil-wearing girl made the allegations of pressure from the police.

The parents of the girl at the heart of the controversy were also present at the press meet. "In the morning of April 16, a policeman told me and my father that we have to give a statement as per his instructions before the court. He pressurised me to say that I was born in 1997 and also to stick to the statement in the recorded video," the girl claimed.

"We were forced to sign on documents and our statements were forcibly recorded before a court," she alleged. "My statement and that of my father before the court was therefore not a voluntary statement. When I gave my statement before the court, my father was not allowed inside with me," she charged.

The girl demanded registration of an FIR against the police for recording the video, circulating it and intimidating her and her family. "I demand an FIR be registered for a video that was recorded of me and then widely circulated in the public against my will. I and my family members were also kept in police detention against our will for one month and we were abused, intimidated and harassed by the police," she said.